Apart, Then Together
by Artemis Bloodshadow
Summary: A three-part story taking place after Naru's departure from Japan. Each part will be inspired by a particular song. Part II: "Try", by Pink. Mai is determined to make the burning in her heart stop.
1. Part I: Naru

"Let Her Go" by Passenger

Disclaimer: I have no rights to the song "Let Her Go" nor to the series "Ghost Hunt".

(A.N.) This is going to be a three-part series. The next chapter will be themed after Pink's "Try", and will be Mai-centric. **Also, I am looking for suggestions for a song for the third installment, which will be about Mai and Naru's reunion**. Please let me know what you all think!

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It was beginning to get too dark in the study to read. He hadn't noticed until the last possible moment, when the sun had almost completely set. Dark blue eyes narrowed in annoyance of being interrupted.

Oliver stood, only noticing how stiff he was as his legs straightened. The young man rolled his shoulders, wincing silently. Perhaps he _had_ overdone it. He supposed that Luella did have a point that he was working far more than normal. Even Martin had remarked upon his extreme schedule the last time the two of them had been present for a meal.

He reached for the nearest lamp, pulling the small chain and thus flooding the room with soft golden light.

Absently, he ran a hand through already disheveled black hair. He had been working since sunrise, writing a new dissertation on dreams, pre-cognition, and telepathy. Sifting through the data had been tedious, though necessary, and he had run into a block when he realized that he hadn't decided yet which case study to primarily feature.

He sent a glare over his shoulder at the flurry of papers covering the large wooden desk. He had never had such problems before.

His mood darkened further when he looked out the window. The dying sun was rapidly being covered by swift, snow-laden clouds. It looked as if winter was coming early to England. _Of course, _he griped silently, _England is hardly the land of the sun. _ He was not overly fond of winter, or necessarily of cloudy days. Despite his general demeanor, which he knew most people found to be cold, he enjoyed sunshine.

Temper sharpened by the impending promise of snow, Noll reseated himself at the desk and began to re-sort the papers into more ordered stacks. His pale hands paused on one set, staring down at the picture neatly clipped to the printed data and personal accounts. The picture of was of his former assistant, Mai Taniyama. The picture had been cropped from a larger, very informal photograph. She was smiling wide and her eyes were looking slightly to the left of the camera.

Tension bound his arms and shoulders, an unidentifiable feeling squeezing his chest, suffocating him. He did not like the feeling. He did not like that he… Well, that he missed her.

Noll shoved the paper away in frustration. He had not thought that he would become so attached to Japan, or to anyone in Japan. But he had. He had never felt anything similar to homesickness before this moment. And while his adoptive parents and his career were here in England, he had never really considered it his home. It was a place he stayed because it was convenient.

But as he sat in gloom, noting disdainfully fat white globs of snow were falling, he realized that he genuinely missed Japan. And his missed Mai. He knew what Gene would say if he was still around. _Idiot scientist_. He supposed he deserved that, given his response to Mai admitting her feelings for him. Not that he would ever admit it.

He had let her go, and he regretted it.

Noll did not regret his decisions often. In fact, he could count the number times he had on one hand. He also never repeated past mistakes.

Tiredly, he reached for the now cold cup of tea that Luella had dropped off hours earlier. He stared down at the dark liquid, knowing it wouldn't taste as good cold. It also would never taste as good as the tea Mai used to make in the tiny kitchenette at the SPR office in Shibuya.

It was odd. He had never considered himself happy in Japan. He had been too busy working, searching for Gene's body. However, now that it was over and he was back in England, misery weighing in the back of his mind… He realized that he had been at the very least content in Japan. And being content was more than he had after Gene had died.

Mai had offered him a chance to be more than content.

He had tried, at first, to justify walking away. There was the lingering doubt that she had transposed her feelings for Gene onto him. More than that, he had convinced himself that everything living which he truly touched (and let touch him back) were doomed to ruin.

None of those justifications kept Mai from his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could almost hear her in his mind. She was the only person, aside from Lin, who ever argued with him, who challenged him. At the same time, she was the only person other than Gene who had ever just forgiven him for insensitivity in the ways of human interaction. Infuriatingly, she _cared._

And, God help him, he _dreamed_ about her.

Sometimes the dreams were ordinary: made up situations, memories, fantasies (which he would never _ever_ discuss with anyone), and other such things.

Sometimes they were more. He knew, with no one telling him, about how she had broken her wrist after a nasty fall she taken in her P.E. class. He knew she had done well on her most recent history paper. He knew many things that he shouldn't know. It was maddening, not the least because his abilities had never encompassed any sort of E.S.P. before now, with the exception of his twin-telepathy with Gene.

Noll leaned back in his chair, letting his head fall back so he could look at the ceiling. Every time he woke up from those dreams, both the ordinary and the not so ordinary, he felt empty, like piece of him was missing. He knew it was more than just Gene being gone. He had compared his current feelings to how he felt looking for his brother's. That loss was still there. But there was more to it now.

He already knew that he had feelings for Mai. Those feelings were becoming annoying, only growing in her absence from his life. He supposed there was only one question left to consider.

A small voice, which sounded much like Gene, whispered in the back of his mind. _Will you let her go?_

Noll's fingers drummed on the arm of the chair. He supposed it was ironic to only realize that he loved her _after_ he had let her go once. A frown pulled the corners of his lips. He was nothing if not determined. When he wanted something, he got it.

He reached over to the sleek black phone taking up one corner of the desk. The number was a memorized one, and his fingers punched the number without much thought.

He did not say hello when the line was picked up. "Book us tickets on the next flight to Japan."

There was a slight pause before the other man answered. "How long will we be staying?"

"For as long as necessary. I need more data to finish my work."

"…Of course, Noll."

Noll hung up, stood, and left the room to begin packing, turning on the hallway lights as he went. He needed the light now that the sun was low on the horizon.

In another part of the Davis house, Houjo Lin smiled. _Finally._

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(A.N.) Please leave reviews! They make me happy inside! :)


	2. Part II: Mai

"Try" by Pink

(A.N) This was hard for me to write. Sad Mai is just hard. :/ But, anyways, **I still haven't decided on the song for Part III! Any and all suggestions are welcome, non-English works included as long as there is an English translation** available. I hope you enjoy this installment!

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It was lunch time for Mai Taniyama. Feeling moody, as she often was of late, she chose to take her meager lunch to the roof for some quiet time. She loved her friends to death, but… Well, Mai had a lot on her mind.

_It's all that idiot narcissist's fault!_

Mai hadn't been to the SPR office for weeks. She knew that, technically, it was closed and everything, but there hadn't been any cases in a while. Madoka had told her that there was no need for her to come in if there was no work to be done. So, she had been sent on her way, though she still got paid the same fee as she would have if she'd been working. Mai was generally uncomfortable with this, but Madoka wouldn't budge and the money appeared in Mai's accounts despite her protestations.

School took up most of her time now. Mostly because she had so much to catch up on. Unfortunately, she found it incredibly hard to focus. She couldn't help but think about her "real" boss, Naru. Or should she start thinking of him as Oliver Davis? She wasn't sure anymore.

Then again, Mai wasn't sure of much anymore.

She thought about him all the time. It was bordering on obsessive. She knew that. But she just _couldn't help it._ She wondered about what he was doing. She wondered if he was alright. She wondered why he hadn't just told her and the others his real name from the beginning. She wondered why he had just kept lying to and misleading her.

Mai wondered, in particular, why on earth he thought she was in love with his dead twin brother. _Stupid Naru, _she fumed silently, kicking the concrete wall lining the roof in frustration. Pain immediately zinged up her leg. "Ow!" she grumbled indignantly.

Settling her aching foot under her, Mai finally sat, though she made not move to eat. _Maybe it's better to just stop asking why. It's not like Naru would explain it to me anyway._ Naru would insult her in all sorts of dry, sarcastic ways if she voiced any of these questions to him.

The young woman gazed out over the landscape. It was chilly enough that she was wearing a coat over her uniform. It was probably too cold to be eating outside, but it hadn't snowed yet. She felt that, until the snow came, there was no pressing reason why she couldn't keep coming to the roof. She didn't like winter. She found it bleak and colorless. Plus, she and ice didn't get along very well.

Not event the chill in the air could cool the fire that burned in her chest. She couldn't pin down if it was anger or desire or something else she couldn't name. And while she couldn't quite decide what it was, she _burned_, and it _hurt._

She thought, for the first couples weeks, that it hurt so much that she was going to die.

But, at the end of each day, she realized that it hurt a little less.

She got up every day and _tried_ as hard as she could to be happy because she knew that, as bad as rejection felt (not to mention the empty place in her chest which never seemed to ever be filled), she would feel better eventually.

Of course, that didn't mean that she didn't want Naru to come back.

In fact, she thought about him coming back all the time. Even dreamed about it. The previous night, she'd had a rather mundane dream about Naru having Lin make all the arrangements. Which, of course, made sense. Naru rarely got his hands dirty with ordinary details.

She couldn't believe that she fell for him as easily as she did. Why could she "unfall" for him just as easily? She couldn't believe that she'd been duped by every single lie about who he was and what he was doing in Japan. She should have known that something wasn't right.

_He never lied to you about anything else though, just his background_. It was that insidious little voice, different than her intuition, nagged. She tried to ignored it as much as possible. She felt that was the quickest way to work her way out of the emotional mess she'd become.

And week after week, she realized that she could force herself not to think about _him_ more effectively. She could forget for a little when she was doing something with her friends or working really hard on impossible math make-up assignments. It was just every now and then, like today, when she couldn't help but reflect.

_I wonder if, when he comes back…?_

Mai bit her lip and folded her arms over her chest, brow furrowing. Maybe when Naru came back, she could try with him again? After all, he couldn't argue with her (or use Gene as a defense) if she tried again. Though she wasn't sure that she could take a second round of rejection.

There had to be _something_ she could do to stop the burning.

She wondered, frowning, if it was too late. Maybe she'd ruined everything by speaking up. _Too soon_, she chastised herself. It was an old argument she'd been having with herself for going on two months now. It usually coincided with a pep talk. _You are not going to just "get by" in life! You are going to enjoy it! With or without that stupid narcissist!_

Mai was always good at cheering herself up. Her shoulders squared, and her head was held higher. There was no reason why she couldn't be happy, even if she knew that she would have been just a tiny bit happier if Naru had… _Ah, just stop thinking about it, dummy!_

She tucked her dark brown hair behind her ears and looked over at her untouched lunch box, checking her watch right after. She still had time to get back to the classroom to eat with Michiru and the others.

Mai gathered her things. She wasn't a quitter. It was time to start planning her grand operation on how to convince Naru of her sincerity when he came back.

Nothing was going to get better if she didn't get up and try.

Operation: Oliver Twist would commence as soon as he arrived back in the office!

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(A.N.) I know it's not very long, but I hope you liked it anyway! Please, please, please drop me a review and let me know what you think! Cheers, darlings!


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